


Ambition (Tearing Out The Heart of You)

by gilligankane



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-03
Updated: 2011-02-03
Packaged: 2017-11-17 07:40:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/549183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gilligankane/pseuds/gilligankane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rachel has always been prepared to fail.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ambition (Tearing Out The Heart of You)

Rachel Berry has always been ambitious. Sometimes, standing in front of a mirror, avoiding her own eyes as she does her best to strain slushie out of her hair, she calls it a curse. Most times, standing in front of New Directions, shoulders back and voice clear, she calls it a blessing. When there’s nothing left to fall back on – when there are no Berry family movie nights or songs in her repertoire at her disposal – her ambition is her cushion, her constant, curse and blessing alike.  
  
So it surprises Rachel more than anyone else that when she looks at Quinn, she sees nothing but  _failure_. Not Quinn. Quinn is probably going to get just as far in life as Rachel, in whatever way she chooses to pursue. But as a couple, she sees nothing for them. She sees no ‘two kids and a white picket fence and a dog running around the lawn’ or thanking Quinn Fabray in her eventual Tony award speech.  
  
She doesn’t see them going anywhere because she’s not going to let herself fall into this trap again, this false sense of security where everything is fine and suddenly she’s being slushied in the middle of the hall while Quinn laughs and twirls her straw in her empty cup. (She had a dream about it, the night after Quinn kissed her, and almost gave up her perfect attendance record to stay home, for fear of what was going to happen when she walked through the door. Having Quinn waiting for her, to walk her to class, was just as unsettling as a slushie to the face would have been.)  
  
She puts a time of death on their relationship half a second before Quinn’s bottom lip grazes against hers, stamps it for approval as Quinn’s fingers brush against her jawbone, and puts an official seal on it when Quinn makes a noise in the back of her throat and pulls away, ducking her head shyly.  
  
Her ambition pushes her, constantly, to succeed and be the best at everything she can possibly be the best at, but she’s trying to be realistic this time. Being with Quinn is nice. Kissing Quinn is even nicer. Laying in bed, tracing the lines on Quinn’s palms and listing off all the facts she’s learned from her Official Palm Reading Handbook is a more of a fun way to spend Saturday than color coordinating her closest again.   
  
Quinn is good to her, now.  
  
One thing Rachel has learned – from Finn and Noah and Jesse and her brief stint as a one-woman show – is that good things never last long.  
  
\---  
  
“It’s almost frightening. You are disturbingly level-headed about this,” Kurt says.  
  
Rachel lowers her copy of the sheet music, brow furrowed in exasperation. This is the seventh time Kurt has made an offhanded comment and she’s starting to get annoyed. “Is there something you’d like to say, Kurt? Something with a point, perhaps?”  
  
He sits up a little straighter and tugs down the sleeves of his blazer, smirking at Mercedes who suddenly abandons painting her nails for the potential gossip session. “You and Quinn.”  
  
“What about us?” Rachel asks, tapping her foot to the count she should be singing:  _1, 2, 3, 4. 1, and 2, and 3, 4._  
  
“It seems like it’s going… well,” Kurt says cautiously.   
  
Rachel sees him exchange a glance with Mercedes and she sighs; they’re wasting time talking about this when they could be practicing for the inter-team competition. While she, Mercedes and Kurt are easily the best singers in the club, she’s afraid this foray into gossip could cost them the coveted first place trophy: another gift certificate, for three, to Breadstix. Finn, Mike and Tina aren’t much to be worried about and there’s no way Noah, Lauren Zizes and Sam could even breech the top three, but Quinn, Santana and Brittany most definitely have a significant chance of defeating them. She had caught the tail end of Quinn and company’s audition piece long ago, when they sang “I Say A Little Prayer” and invaded the inner sanctum of New Directions. They have stage presence. They have those Cheerio skirts. They can capture an audience. Santana really loves – to a point that seems to frighten everyone besides Brittany – Breadstix. That’s four too many advantages than Rachel is comfortable letting another team have.  
  
“It’s not going anywhere,” she says shortly. “Now, if you turn to the second page, I think we could add a note for Mercedes to really shine.”  
  
Kurt doesn’t turn to the second page. “What do you mean it’s not going anywhere?”  
  
Mercedes frowns at her. “Girl-”  
  
“I mean,” she says firmly, “that it’s not going anywhere. Not in the scheme of things. And neither is this song, with the way you two refuse to participate in this rehearsal. Gossip might make you popular, but it doesn’t make you a winner. Hard work does that.” She smiles widely and taps her sheet music. “Hard work and ambition. So, from the top?”  
  
Kurt is shaking his head and Mercedes is just staring at her, but Rachel refuses to indulge this conversation. Things with Quinn  _have_  been going somewhere – Quinn snuck her hand up her top a week ago and Rachel had been too distracted by the seemingly acrobatic maneuver Quinn’s tongue was doing inside her mouth to really protest. Just last night, Quinn had her shirt halfway over her head, but her fathers called them down to dinner.   
  
Physically, their relationship has been progressing quite comfortably, but Kurt sounds like he’s talking about the other aspect of their relationship and Rachel refuses to acknowledge that part to anyone, let alone the worst gossip in McKinley.  
  
Kurt sounds like he’s talking about emotionally and that’s where things are getting tricky. Because Rachel can feel herself falling for Quinn, for all her jokes and the way she cocks her head to the side when Rachel puts on a musical. She’s falling for all of Quinn’s quirks and Quinn’s laugh and how Quinn’s hand always finds her under the lunch table.  
  
That’s not part of the plan.  
  
She signals to Brad to start the music over and counts out the beat so Mercedes and Kurt can follow along. It’s perfect on the first take – minus one small hiccup where Mercedes switched the word order of a key line – and Cheerios skirts or not, her small team will win this one.  
  
\---  
  
It’s not that she  _wants_  them to fail as a couple. In all of her dream journals, she becomes one significantly substantial half of a William McKinley High School power couple. Finn seemed like the perfect choice: the hunky male lead, quarterback of the football team.   
  
Quinn Fabray was the only one who ranked higher than him on the social food chain.   
  
Rachel had almost given up on the power-couple dream – she had her red pen out and her dream journal open to the correct page – when Quinn Fabray showed up at her door, asking for help on a project for glee, something Rachel was all too eager to give. Her dream journal stayed open on her desk for days, until the afternoon that Quinn Fabray took a deep breath and kissed her.  
  
Failure as a couple is the last thing she wants, but there’s a nagging sense of inevitability that pulls at the back of her mind every time Quinn’s hand traces down the ridge of her hip bone and over across the waistline of her skirt. There’s this haunting, foreboding sense of disaster, looming above them like a spinning mobile.  
  
Failure as a couple is the last thing she wants. It’s just – for all her ambition and her unfailing optimism – what she expects.  
  
\---  
  
Somehow, they make it to Homecoming. They are “bland’ and “boring,” as Kurt calls them, but by the time the football game is over, they are the only couple besides Brittany and Santana, who can say they made it this far – a definite landmark in high school relationships. She doesn’t lie when Quinn asks her how she feels about it; she honestly tells her girlfriend that in her life plan, it was Finn holding her hand when they won the game, not wearing Quinn’s letterman.  
  
Quinn frowns for only a quarter of a second before Brittany jumps onto her back, laughing wildly. Santana slides into the space Quinn vacates, grinning at the two blondes.  
  
“So what are you two doing for the weekend?” Santana finally asks.  
  
Rachel tilts her head to the side, confused. “Excuse me?”  
  
“You know.” Santana waves her hand in a circle. “What are you two doing? Britt and I are going to this cabin my dad rented to have marathon sex.” She shrugs when Rachel makes a face. “So what are you two doing?”  
  
She isn’t sure since they never really talked about it. There are some workshops she’s had her eye on, in Columbus, a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing. She’s made it a point not to use the word “ _future_ ” when she talks to Quinn, even if it’s just for Homecoming. They have calendars, sure, but Rachel had made that mistake with Finn, dreaming her big dreams with him. She doesn’t want to push Quinn away necessarily, but she’s wary of holding on too tight, and the word “ _future_ ” is more than capable of that.  
  
“I might explore some local theater to prepare for taking my chance on Broadway,” she finally answers.  
  
Santana wrinkles her nose. “Poor Quinn. I know she knows what a boring weekend you have planned for the two of you.” When Rachel doesn’t say anything, Santana turns to face her, arms crossed over her chest. Even without her uniform on, Santana Lopez strikes a chord of uneasiness into Rachel’s heart. “She does know what a shitty weekend you have planned for the two of you, right? Because that? It’s not one of the best Homecoming Queen gifts she’s going to get.”  
  
“What does it matter, Santana?” Rachel smoothes out the McKinley jacket, her hands clammy under the sudden intensity of Santana’s glare. “Realistically, it’s not like we’re going to stay together much longer, and then she won’t even remember I wasn’t here.”  
  
Santana lifts one eyebrow slowly. “Does Quinn know that?”  
  
Brittany leaps off Quinn’s back and swings around, catching Santana by the neck and kissing her. She says something about a set of bleachers and they’re gone before Rachel has to answer Santana.  
  
Quinn skims her open palm against Rachel’s cheek, her other hand twisting loose strands of Rachel’s hair and pushing them back behind her ear, noticing Rachel’s frown. “What’s wrong? Was she being mean to you again? Because I talked to her about and…”  
  
Rachel’s frown fades a little. “No. She was just asking what we were doing this weekend.”  
  
“Cool,” Quinn says, smiling widely. “I was going to ask you too. Because Santana invited us to that lake house her dad got her, but I’m pretty sure she didn’t really want us there.” Her hand slides around to the back of Rachel’s neck, tugging her closer. “Everyone else is staying here, though. And Noah’s mom is going away, so he’s having a party. We could go. Someone has to show off the Queen, you know,” she teases, taking her crown off with her free hand and positioning it crookedly on Rachel’s head.  
  
Rachel touches the crown gently and feels a surge of regret that she quickly tempers. “Actually, there’s this workshop in Columbus-”  
  
“And it’s a once in a life time opportunity,” Quinn finishes, not unkindly. She’s heard it before; it’s Rachel’s go-to excuse for all the times she decided to go somewhere and told Quinn last minute. “That’s all right. We can celebrate next year.”  
  
“Next year?” Rachel pulls her gaze away from Noah doing some lewd sexual act of dance in the middle of the field, holding the game ball high above his head and sliding his other hand under some Cheerio’s uniform top. “Why next year?”  
  
Quinn rolls her eyes and smiles, leaning in to kiss her gently. She lingers and pulls back, letting go of Rachel’s bottom lip as an afterthought. “Yeah,” she breathes out, straightening up. “I have to come back next year to hand the crown off and it’s a holiday weekend, so you can come and not worry about not getting back for your classes on Monday. Maybe,” Quinn adds, shrugging.  
  
Next year.  
  
Quinn wants to come back  _next year_  and she says it so confidently, like she’s absolutely positive that they’ll be together this time next year; like she thinks they actually have a chance. Rachel wants to pull away, give Quinn her crown back, and tell Quinn she’s sorry, she just can’t do this anymore.  
  
She can’t think a weekend in advance when it comes to Quinn. An entire year makes her heart seize in her chest and those nerves start creeping in again, the ones that say, “ _Rachel, get it together, she’ll only hurt you in the end_.” Her guard goes back up and she slides her hand out of Quinn’s, handing her back the crown, straightening it out on top of her head.  
  
“Yeah,” she echoes, lost for words, afraid that if she says too much, she’ll end it here before it’s too late. “Maybe.”   
  
Mike Chang slides up to their side, bows low and offers his hand. “Would the Queen care to dance?” He points up at the speakers on the top of the press box, blasting New Directions Greatest Hits across the quickly-emptying football field. “If you don’t mind, Rachel.”  
  
Rachel shakes her head and Quinn kisses her quickly before giggling and taking Mike’s offered hand. She watches them spin across the 40-yard line. She pushes her shaking hands deeper into the pockets of Quinn’s jacket.  
  
\---  
  
It’s not until New Year’s Eve that Rachel realizes she’s in trouble.   
  
This is the first year she’s been in a relationship on New Years – any fantasy Jacob Ben Israel cooked up is irrelevant – and for the first time since she can remember, she doesn’t go to her father’s work party. Instead, Quinn picks her up at eight-thirty, standing at the bottom of her steps while Rachel walks down slowly, like every teen movie she’s ever seen.  
  
“Wow,” Quinn breathes out.  
  
It feels cliché, but Rachel wants to trip when she gets to the bottom, just to see if Quinn will catch her.  
  
She tugs at the waist of her dress – it’s simple and not really wow-worthy, but arguing with the look on Quinn’s face is likely to take up time, meaning she’ll have to spend more time at Noah’s, meaning she’ll have to deal with him staring at Quinn longingly even more than he already will. It’s not  _jealousy_  - why would it be? She’s not jealous that Noah can’t seem to trail after her girlfriend like a lost puppy all the time, batting his brown eyes at her.   
  
Jealousy. She laughs a little every time she even thinks the word.  
  
“Come on,” she says quietly, lacing her fingers with Quinn’s and towing her towards the door. “We’re going to be late.”  
  
Quinn pulls her to a stop on the front step, her hands smoothing along the collar of Rachel’s coat, pulling it tighter around her. It’s the end of December and it’s supposed to be cold but all Rachel can feel is the heat coming off of Quinn and Quinn’s breath beating across the bridge of her nose. “Slow down, speed racer,” she murmurs. “I didn’t even say hello.”  
  
So Quinn leans in and says hello, leans away, then says hello again, sweeping her tongue across Rachel’s bottom lip. When Rachel finally remembers to pull away, her hands are already winding through Quinn’s hair, holding her closer, her body betraying her decision to let go.  
  
“We don’t have to go to the party,” Quinn murmurs so quietly Rachel isn’t sure she said it.  
  
“What?”  
  
Quinn clears her throat. “I said, we don’t have to go to the party.”  
  
There’s a look in Quinn’s eyes that Rachel can’t make herself disapprove of. “We don’t,” she says quietly.  
  
A smile spreads across Quinn’s face and she’s leading Rachel down the walkway to her car, taking a left when she should take a right. Rachel doesn’t realize she’s really in trouble until she breaks, coming down from her high with Quinn’s name on her lips and Quinn’s fingers soothing up the side of her ribcage, Quinn’s forehead pressed against her shoulder, words mumbled into her skin.  
  
She doesn’t realize she’s in trouble until that moment where her body changes and she becomes something different underneath Quinn. That’s the moment she exhales and feels the room slide even more to the left until she’s in the bathroom, looking into the mirror at someone she’s never seen before.  
  
At someone in love.  
  
The realization sticks in her chest and grows until she’s standing alone in the bathroom, a sheet wrapped under her arms, pressing a flat hand against the space between her breasts, trying to catch her breath. Quinn’s words echo around her, bouncing off the linoleum and the cheap paint chipping off the walls.  
  
“ _I love you, Rachel,_ ” over and over again until she can’t hear herself breathing or the howling of the wind outside or the sound of Dick Clark announcing the countdown to the New Year. She just hears Quinn, saying  _”I love you”_  again and again.  
  
She realizes she’s in trouble because she knows what came next, in that one terrifying moment where she said it back.  
  
\---  
  
Things are good. Things are so good Rachel lets every guard she’s ever built come crashing down. Each time Quinn kisses her goodnight, or texts her good morning, or tells her that she loves her before math class, the walls come down a little more until she’s standing open, finally bare for the first time.  
  
Old-Rachel, the one who shrugged away Kurt’s questions and ignored Santana’s pointed glances, would call New-Rachel a sitting duck; say that she’s asking to be trampled on; warn her to keep her suspicions up no matter what.  
  
New-Rachel pushes Old-Rachel to the back of her mind and focuses instead on the good things. Their matching calendars start filling in with more than just “ _Rachel’s ballet lesson”_  and now there’s little reminders, like “ _Date with Quinn; wear appropriate bowling attire_.” Red hearts start appearing in the margins of her notebooks, doodled in the edges until the pages ripple up and crinkle when she closes the covers. In Glee, Mr. Schuester gives away a solo – to Santana, of all people – but Rachel is too busy listening to the end of Quinn’s joke to notice, and she laughs too much to really care when Santana throws it in her face.  
  
Things are so good that nothing seems like it’s going to go wrong.  
  
New-Rachel forgets that good things don’t last and starts believing in that silly word  _forever_.  
  
\---  
  
Quinn, slumped forward on their couch, her head in hands, whispers that “ _it’s over_ ” and Rachel just nods.  
  
Rachel nods and doesn’t try and fight it, because “ _okay, it’s over_ ” and she can’t really do anything about it. They were never that couple that were going to last. She didn’t think they’d even make it this far: the night before graduation, alone in Quinn’s basement, discussing the plans for their summer. She didn’t think they’d make it through Homecoming, or prom, or winning Regionals, but they did.  
  
She didn’t think she’d fall in love with Quinn, but she did.  
  
She fell in love with all of Quinn’s quirks and all of Quinn’s quips but when Quinn says that it’s done, that they’re over, Rachel doesn’t try and fight it.  
  
This was always going to be how they ended. Inevitability is a certainty and they defied the odds this far. Eventually, they were going to break up and Old-Rachel is a taunting voice in the back of her mind, laughing and pointing and leering, saying “ _I told you so_.”  
  
They had their good moments and Rachel is so in love with Quinn that good became enough – good became great which became  _everything_.  
  
But they fight. About college and summer plans and Rachel forgetting to tell Quinn about another workshop in Columbus. Rachel reverts back to the idea that it’s going to end, so don’t fight it.  
  
She doesn’t. She nods and stands and smoothes down her shirt – which she’ll undoubtedly have to give back to Quinn, when the blonde eventually asks for all of her things back, including this Cheerios shirt she lent Rachel – and starts up the stairs.  
  
Rachel Berry has always been ambitious. With ambition comes desire and with desire comes passion. With passion comes execution and with execution comes the ability to make mistakes. Rachel has made mistakes – she’s a teenager with  _drive_ , after all – but out of all the mistakes she’s made – there were some unfortunate wardrobe choices before she found her perfect power suit – turning around at the third step, just to glance back at Quinn, is one of the worst.  
  
Quinn hasn’t moved, still slumped forward with her head in her hands, still sitting on the couch staring at the space where Rachel just was.  
  
Rachel is going to continue on her way, leave the house with some dignity and not cry until she makes it home, but she hesitates a second later and that’s her second mistake. She hesitates and watches Quinn turn to face her, her eyes red and liquid, staring straight through her.  
  
“It’s that easy for you, isn’t it,” Quinn rasps. “Just to give us up.”  
  
She wants to tell Quinn that it’s not. It’s so far from easy to just walk away, but that’s she’s been preparing for this moment since they started and she doesn’t want to fight it if they’re both going to end up more hurt in the end.  
  
But then Quinn mutters, “You probably never even loved me,” and Rachel is marching back down the stairs, grabbing Quinn’s face and tilting it up.  
  
“I loved you,” she says firmly. “I love you.”  
  
“You’re giving up,” Quinn argues, staring somewhere past Rachel’s shoulder. “I said that’s it and you couldn’t get to the door fast enough.”  
  
The explanation is on the tip of her tongue: Quinn, I gave up because this was coming.   
  
Quinn, I knew we would never make it because fairytales are only true if you still believe in them and I don’t anymore.   
  
Quinn, I was so afraid you would hurt me that I never let myself imagine the possibility of us together longer than high school.   
  
 _Quinn, I’m afraid._  
  
It’s right there, but she swallows it back and shakes her head to clear her own eyes, and all she is capable of saying is, “I’m sorry.”  
  
Quinn starts shaking her head slowly and that choking feeling fills Rachel’s chest again. She’s suddenly afraid of losing Quinn. Rachel stills Quinn’s head, locking her fingers behind Quinn’s neck, tugging her closer. “I’m sorry,” she says again. “I’m sorry. I want this.”  
  
Rachel Berry has always been ambitious.  
  
“I want us,” she says quietly, her forehead pressed Quinn’s.  
  
Rachel Berry has always been ambitious. She has always worked hard for the things she wants and the things she knows she needs. Sometimes, it’s a curse. Sometimes, she battles laughter and mocking and slushies in her hair. Sometimes, it’s a blessing, like when Principal Figgins offers her the stage to sing a final song for the graduating class.  
  
Ambition has always been enough for her – through the bad times too. Ambition was always her fallback, her last defense, her cushion, the floatation device she clung to in rough weather. She never had anything besides that, except…  
  
Except Quinn’s hands slide around her waist and her face presses into Rachel’s stomach. Her hands slide down through Quinn’s hair, twisting the strands around her fingers aimlessly, feeling something warm spread through her chest in place of the cold, seizing feeling from before. It feels like something comes back together that she didn’t know was broken in the first place.  
  
Ambition has always been enough, but when Quinn lifts her head and stares at Rachel, her eyes darting from side to side and Rachel feels the side of her mouth curl up in something like a smile, maybe ambition isn’t the only thing she has anymore.  
  
Maybe good things – maybe Quinn – lasts.  
  
Maybe, if she’s not so afraid, she just needs to want it to.


End file.
